Electrical cables which are manufactured and delivered in very long one-piece lengths cannot be wound on drums since the drums would be exorbitant in size.
They are therefore stored in storage tanks.
While it is being coiled down, the cable is subjected to a twist of one turn about its longitudinal axis per spiral turn in the tank. Such twist degrades the internal structure of the cable so efforts are made to reduce it by increasing the average diameter of the turns.
While the coil is being uncoiled the height of the guide point of the cable is raised, which guide point is usually on a pulley which is fitted with a guide hole for guiding the cable into the vertical axis of the tank.
The machines and devices generally used have a guide point which is very high above the tank in order to facilitate uncoiling. They therefore tend to have a coiling arm which is either sloping or else mounted on a parallelogram linkage. Such machines are thus very tall and difficult to integrate in a conventional workshop or in the hold of a cable ship.
Preferred embodiments of the present invention enable this drawback of excessive height to be avoided, while still ensuring that twist is properly distributed along the cable.